In a recent essay, “Economics Needs a Scientific Revolution”, in one of the leading scientific journals, Nature, physicist Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, a researcher for an investment management company, asked rhetorically, “What is the flagship achievement of economics?” Bouchaud’s answer: “Only its recurrent inability to predict and avert crises”.[1]

Below is a reworked
version of the report on climate change and climate campaigns, drafted
by Daniel Tanuro and presented at February 2009 meeting of the International
Committee (IC) of the Fourth International. This
report has been adopted as the basis of a resolution to be written for the coming Fourth International world congress. This first appeared on the International Viewpoint website.

I. THE CLIMATIC THREAT: CAUSES, RESPONSIBILITIES, SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS

1. Climate change is a fact without precedent

Climate change is a fact. In the 20th
century, the average temperature of the surface of the Earth increased
by 0.6°C, the sea level went up from between 10 and 20 cm, glaciers
retreated almost everywhere in significant proportions, the violence of
cyclones increased in the North Atlantic, and more extreme weather
phenomena, such as storms, floods and droughts, were recorded.

A 20-minute interview recorded with a handheld cam in Oregon, USA, in February 2009. John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthy Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is co-author, with Fred Magdoff, of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences
(Monthly Review Press, January 2009) among numerous other works.Foster discusses the global economic crisis, its
implications for the world and particularly the Australian economy. He
also discusses the ecological crisis and the potential for
revolutionary change.

March 13, 2009 -- In recent decades a form of militant creationism — masquerading as
science under the name of “Intelligent Design” — has gone on the
offensive, promoting the teaching of biblical creationism in schools,
and carrying out a broader “wedge strategy”, aimed at transforming the
place and nature of science in society.

Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present,
is almost overdue in this respect. It traces the rise of the “design”
phenomenon, and its relationship to conservative, right-wing politics,
and places it in the context of a 2500-year-long debate between
materialism and creationism that lies at the heart of Western
civilisation.

“Cities, after all, have a great
deal in common with cars. More and more, in fact, they often seem to be turning
into cars. There are deep mysteries here, impenetrable to the present shallow
state of human understanding. Somehow, we know not how, things
communicate.” — Russell Baker, New York Times, March 8, 1973

Melbourne, February 26, 2009 -- Australian plastics manufacturer Nylex has been placed in the hands of receivers. Nylex is a well-known name — the company produces the iconic Esky, water tanks, wheelie bins, hose and garden fittings and interior trimmings for car manufacturers. According to the February 13 Melbourne Age,
“The drought and a government rebate stimulated demand for water tanks,
but oversupply pushed down prices and demand collapsed after
substantial rain in Queensland and NSW.”

The slump in the auto industry also contributed to the company’s
woes. In the end, the banks (ANZ and Westpac) called in their loans.

The jobs of its 700-strong work force are in the balance. The
receivers may or may not find a buyer for Nylex, but any new owner is
likely to heavily restructure the company, leading to substantial job
losses.

February 21, 2009 -- As the world economy spirals down into its deepest crisis since the great depression, the writings of Karl Marx have made a return to the top seller lists in bookstores. In his native Germany, the sales of Marx’s works have trebled.

His theories have been treated with contempt by conservative economists
and historians. Yet, in the context of the latest economic downturn,
even a few mainstream economists have been compelled to ask whether
Marx was right after all.

Marx argued that capitalism is inherently unstable, fraught with contradictions and prone to deep crises.

Exploitation, war, hunger and poverty were not problems that could
be solved by the market system, he said. Rather, they were inescapable
outcomes of the system itself. This is because capitalism is dominated
by the wealthiest corporations and devoted to profit above all else.

Only a move to a democratic socialist society, where ordinary
people are empowered to make the key decisions about the economy and
society themselves, can open the path to genuine freedom and
liberation.

Humans depend on functioning ecosystems to sustain themselves and
their actions affect those same ecosystems. As a result, there is a
necessary “metabolic interaction” between humans and the earth, which
influences both natural and social history. Increasingly, the state of
nature is being defined by the operations of the capitalist system, as
anthropogenic forces are altering the global environment on a scale
that is unprecedented.

Walk Against Warming, Sydney, 2006.Photo by Alex Bainbridge/Green Left Weekly

By John Bellamy Foster

[This article, which first appeared in the November 2008 issue of Monthly Review, is a revised version of a keynote
address delivered at the “Climate Change, Social Change” conference,
Sydney, Australia, April 12, 2008, organised by Green Left Weekly. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission. Watch and listen to Bellamy Foster's presentation HERE. For more articles on Marxism and the ecology, click HERE.]

September 9, 2008 -- On the fringe of the green movement, one always hears the following
phrases coming from the mainstream with great regularity: "green
capitalism", "sustainable capitalism", "social entrepreneurs", "green
entrepreneurs", etc. None of these terms tend to mean anything
specific, and no one who uses them is in a great hurry to spell out,
for example, how a green entrepreneur is different in any fundamental
way from some other kind of entrepreneur, or how capitalism could be
driven toward sustainability rather than profit. So you can imagine my
pleasure at meeting the author of a book called Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense.

The world ocean covers approximately 70 per cent of the Earth. It has been an integral part of human history, providing food and ecological services. Yet conservation efforts and concerns with environmental degradation have mostly focused on terrestrial issues. Marine scientists and oceanographers have recently made remarkable discoveries in regard to the intricacies of marine food webs and the richness of oceanic biodiversity. However, the excitement over these discoveries is dampened due to an awareness of the rapidly accelerating threat to the biological integrity of marine ecosystems.[1]

At the start of the twenty-first century marine scientists focused on the rapid depletion of marine fish, revealing that 75 per cent of major fisheries are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. It is estimated “that the global ocean has lost more than 90% of large predatory fishes”. The depletion of ocean fish stock due to overfishing has disrupted metabolic relations within the oceanic ecosystem at multiple trophic and spatial scales.[2]

July 27, 2008 -- From the first day it appeared online, Climate and Capitalism’s masthead
has carried the slogan “Ecosocialism or Barbarism: there is no third
way.” We’ve been quite clear that ecosocialism is not a new theory or
brand of socialism — it is socialism with Marx’s important insights on
ecology restored, socialism committed to the fight against ecological
destruction. But why do we say that the alternative to ecosocialism is barbarism?

Marxists have used the word “barbarism” in various ways, but most
often to describe actions or social conditions that are grossly
inhumane, brutal, and violent. It is not a word we use lightly, because
it implies not just bad behaviour but violations of the most important
norms of human solidarity and civilised life. [1]

The slogan “Socialism or Barbarism” originated with the great German
revolutionary socialist leader Rosa Luxemburg, who repeatedly raised it
during World War I. It was a profound concept, one that has become ever
more relevant as the years have passed.

The July-August 2008 (Volume 60, Number 3) edition of the influential US socialist journal Monthly Review is a special issue on ``Ecology: The Moment of
Truth”, edited by Brett Clark, John Bellamy Foster and Richard York. The issue is devoted to the planetary environmental
emergency. It is essential reading for all socialists and environmentalists. With permission from Monthly Review, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal here posts the introduction by the editors, and urges Links' readers to purchase the issue and/or subscribe to Monthly Review.

When one sees a modern city from the air, especially at night, it is a truly
awe-inspiring spectacle. What always strikes me is the immensity of the
project, a testimony to the power and creativity of human beings. However, on
the ground and actually living and working in this wonder, things are quite
different and the social and ecological problems crowd in and fill one’s view.
The truth
is that our cities have always been dominated by the rich and powerful and
built and operated to serve their needs — not those of the mass of working
people who live and toil in them.

* * *

This
article is based on a talk presented at the Climate Change | Social Change
Conference in Sydney, April 2008. The conference was organised byGreen Left Weekly. For more articles, audio and video from the conference, click here.

A talk to the Climate Change Social Change Conference held in Sydney from April 11 to 13, 2008, organised by Green Left Weekly. For more articles, audio and video from the conference, click here.

April 13, 2008 -- I’m
sure everybody here is aware of the basic facts of global warming and
the likely consequences if rapid and serious action is not taken. There
is virtually unanimous agreement among scientists and activists, and
increasingly among millions of ordinary people, about the degree of the
problem and the time frame we have to make fundamental changes to
address it.

Marxism and the environment was a workshop given by John Bellamy Foster to the Climate Change Social Change Conference, in Sydney on April 12, 2008. Foster is editor of Monthly Review (USA) and author of Marx's Ecology. The conference was organised by Green Left Weekly. For more audio and video of John Bellamy Foster on related topics, go to http://links.org.au/node/343

John Bellamy Foster, Marxist ecologist and editor of Monthly Review, addressed the Climate Change I Social Change Conference on ``Capitalism and Climate Change'', Sydney, April 11, 2008. Foster's talk was part of a panel discussing ``Climate change and its social roots''. The conference was organised by Green Left Weekly. Below is Foster's talk in five parts. Click here for an audio recording of all the speakers on the panel, which included Patrick Bond from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and editor of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society. John Bellamy Foster discusses Marxism and the environment further here.